A League of Their Own

Lavonne "Pepper" Paire-Davis, a 10-season All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player who inspired the character portrayed by Geena Davis in 1992's A League of Their Own, died of natural causes on Saturday in Van Nuys, Calif. She was 88.

"I know what it's like for your dream to come true, mine did," the Los Angeles-born Paire-Davis told the Associated Press in 1995, when she was 70. "Baseball was the thing I had the most fun doing. It was like breathing."